"Family Group Conferences: A Challenge to Victim Offender Mediation?"

This article discusses two models of family group conferencing (FGC) coming to the U.S. from New Zealand and from Australia. The FGC model is intuitively appealing to restorative justice advocates in North America and may contain some important suggestions for victim-offender mediation. At the same time, there are a number of unresolved issues and potential dangers in adapting this model to North American culture. The purpose of this article is to encourage a serious discussion of both the potential opportunities and pitfalls presented by this process. Potential dangers are identified and principles are suggested as guiding principles for restorative FGCs.